RT Journal Article

SR Electronic
T1 Leaking privacy and shadow profiles in online social networks
JF Science Advances
JO Sci Adv
FD American Association for the Advancement of Science
DO 10.1126/sciadv.1701172
VO 3
IS 8
A1 Garcia, David
YR 2017
UL http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/8/e1701172.abstract
AB Social interaction and data integration in the digital society can affect the
control that individuals have on their privacy. Social networking sites can access
data from other services, including user contact lists where nonusers are listed
too. Although most research on online privacy has focused on inference of personal
information of users, this data integration poses the question of whether it is
possible to predict personal information of nonusers. This article tests the shadow
profile hypothesis, which postulates that the data given by the users of an online
service predict personal information of nonusers. Using data from a disappeared
social networking site, we perform a historical audit to evaluate whether personal
data of nonusers could have been predicted with the personal data and contact lists
shared by the users of the site. We analyze personal information of sexual
orientation and relationship status, which follow regular mixing patterns in the
social network. Going back in time over the growth of the network, we measure
predictor performance as a function of network size and tendency of users to
disclose their contact lists. This article presents robust evidence supporting the
shadow profile hypothesis and reveals a multiplicative effect of network size and
disclosure tendencies that accelerates the performance of predictors. These results
call for new privacy paradigms that take into account the fact that individual
privacy decisions do not happen in isolation and are mediated by the decisions of
others.